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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Nebo: Brothers, Bonfire, Whiteout, and a 6k Continuous Descent

It has become a spring tradition for my brothers and me to ski the Nebo. Nebo isn't too far from where we grew up (Gunnison), it's on the way home, and it just happens to be a good ski hill. Since we were all going home for Easter, we decided to work Nebo in. Oh yeah, brothers in the faith, Bart and Andy, joined us as well. They have blogged about our 7.5 hour adventure here (Bart) and here (Andy). Here are some pictures from our trip:

This year, we climbed up Pole Canyon via Mona. The skiable snow line was at about 6000 feet, and that's where we started. Here are the brothers with Mona below.

There are three summits on Nebo -- the North, Middle/True, and South. I think the Middle Summit is the highest at around 11,980 or so. We approached the Middle Summit from the north, following the ridge that connects the North and Middle Summit. When visibility is good, the ridge walk is pretty spectacular. When visibility is bad, the winds are nuking, and the snow is blowing, things get interesting. Here is Andy about 1/2 way up the north ridge.

The last pitch to the Middle Summit is relatively steep in the winter. A whippet or a axe comes in handy. Here is Bart putting up the final booter, climbing into the sky. He forgot his Whippets at home because he thought we were going on a spring tour.

One of the big questions of the day was, "How are we going to get down?" We chose what is often referred to as the Northwest Couloir. The top of the chute was hard and wind scoured. And it lured us in. Andy skiing the top portion.

Our descent turned out to be epic, and even a little bit fun. But there was a point when it was quite stressful. Because the northwest couloir was on the windward side and because the top of the chute was hard scoured -- the chute did not appear to be wind loaded, I felt that the northwest chute was relatively safe. However, as we descended further into the chute, we discovered that the wind was so strong that it was blowing apron snow up the chute. Spindrift and snow falling off the chute's walls probably contributed as well. When I skied into this wind loaded section, I had that sinking feeling. I considered booting back up the chute and out. Perhaps we should have, but after doing a few ski cuts, and jumping around, it appeared the snow, through wind loaded, was not moving. We skied out, but I skied fast without really enjoying the deep snow, looking over my shoulder the whole time.

Once onto the apron, however, things were good. Here is a shot of some of the crew skiing the bowl with the chutes above.